PETA President Bequeaths an Eye to NIH in New Will

For Immediate Release:
June 5, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

An eye to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), her lips to the U.S. president, and part of her spine to Donald Trump Jr.: These are among the bequests in PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s newly updated last will and testament to ensure that she continues drawing attention to animal abuse and exploitation even after her death.

Newkirk’s original will was drafted 20 years ago after a flying scare, and because PETA has won so many victories for animals since then, it needed an overhaul. For instance, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, to which she had left her pointer finger to serve as the “Greatest Accusation on Earth,” stopped using animals and will now receive a thumbs-up in thanks for leaving animal acts behind.

Newkirk’s updated will, filed with her attorney executor, includes the following bequests (see the full list here):

• A “watchful eye” to NIH, to remind the agency that PETA will be watching until it stops funding and conducting billions of dollars’ worth of painful experiments on animals every year
• Her lips to the S. president, if the turkey pardon is still being held, to push the POTUS to stop kissing up to the turkey industry.
• Part of her spine to cowardly trophy hunter Donald Trump Jr., who might stop trying to prove his manhood by gunning down magnificent, unthreatening, and unsuspecting animals if he had one
• A piece of her heart to Elon Musk to clone for himself, since his cruel and deadly Neuralink brain experiments on monkeys, pigs, rats, and sheep indicate that he doesn’t have one
• Her lungs to the governor of Alaska, to call for an end to the Iditarod, in which over 150 dogs have died—with aspiration pneumonia (caused by inhaling their own vomit) the leading cause of death
• An ear to the king of Spain, in protest of bullfighting, in which the matador often cuts off the bull’s ears as a trophy
• Part of her neck to King Charles III (or his successor) if he has failed to cut ties with pigeon racing, since the necks of “losing” birds are often wrung after they’ve endured grueling races

“On his deathbed, they asked Bob Hope where he wanted to be buried and he replied, ‘Surprise me,’” says Newkirk. “In my case, when I die, I will hope to keep right on surprising those who harm animals, provoking conversation about speciesism, and campaigning against animal abuse.”

Other directions from her original will remain, including frying up her flesh (with onions) for a human barbecue and sawing off her other foot for an umbrella stand, like the elephant-foot ones she saw when growing up in India. Also included are burying another piece of her heart at Germany’s Hockenheim racetrack—as Newkirk is a lifelong Formula 1 fan—and sending Bruno and Rupert, the teddy bears she’s had since she was a baby, to an orphanage in India.